This is a very sad day, a very sad day indeed. I lost more than a phone today. I lost a dear friend. Cell phone, o dear cell phone, you stuck by me through the best and the worst. You were loyal even when I mistreated you. In those last moments of your life, memories flashed before my eyes as I watched your flickering screen dye out. Still now, I grasp on to the snapping strings of hope that you might survive. I am not quite ready to lay you to your rest, so I have left you in a comfortable cup of rice in the hope that I might see the light of your screen again. You need not fear; I will see to it that the malicious puddle that put you in this state will be dealt with. But for now, I will stay by your side even in your state of unconsciousness, seeking some comfort from the fact that your SIM card soul survives. My cruel mind replays and replays those moments between the time that you parted from my backpack and rippled the surface of the puddle. Then it seemed but an instant, but now it seems an eternity; I stood helpless as you fell, my mind not seeming to process what was happening in time to react. You have helped me through difficult times, pulling me through my boredom; I only wish I could have returned the favor. I must now depart, and the only hope I have as I go to sleep is that I might be able to see you again tomorrow.

Since my (second to) last blog was about something bad happening to me, I think this time I'll blog about when I got dehydrated. I know, fun, right!? I was dehydrated once before, but that was when I was only about six or something, so I didn't really remember it. All I remember is being in the hospital and getting a stuffed bear (I named it 'Special'... I know I'm pretty creative). But then last year, I got dehydrated again. I won't go into detail about the nausea and puking and all that fun stuff, but just know that it was bad. So bad that my mom took me to the hospital. I went to the hospital and they gave me an anti-nausea pill while I was waiting... the pill was 0% effective and I threw it up. Yep. Eventually they took me into a room and I got an IV. It was like magic. I felt better immediately, but the weird thing was how cold I was. I had like 7 blankets on, but I was still uncontrollably shivering. Seriously, I was having, like, shiver spazms. When I thought about it, it was probably because the IV fluid was room temperature. When it was time to take the IV out, another really weird thing happened. They stopped the fluid, and I could like feel it stop moving inside, it was so weird. I went home and I was really slap-happy but also really tired (this was in the middle of the night). I took a nap and all was well!

This year, you weren’t really all there. I hope you’re feeling alright. You were a little late, but that’s okay. You finally came! To be honest, I thought you were acting kind of rude at first. All the little kids asked for snow, but none came. You kind of left the sled hill in the lurch. You know it’s nothing without you. You gave us an ice rink but then you took it away. It was fun while it lasted, but that sad puddle of water that was left after? That was just cold. I was disappointed by your outfit, all muddy wet and brown. It’s nothing compared to your usual white winter outfit. I thought you would dress more formally, especially for Christmas! Now that you’re finally here, I might finally be able to take part in some winter activities. I made a snowman. That counts, right? ...Actually, now that you’re here, I’m ready to say goodbye. So goodbye, winter. You can go now. Spring should be on it’s way! It was nice knowing you, and see you next year. From, Me

I was reminded of an old story today in a horribly unpleasant way.Lets start with the old story.So on my birthday, my friends Shannon and Lily had come to my house while I was sleeping and woken me up in the morning (with donuts :D). We pretty much just hung out the rest of the day in a lazy weekend sort of way. Then on Shannon's birthday, me and Lily made 13 laminated signs of weird pictures of Shannon, and we pulled an all-nighter and put them on her lawn in the middle of the night. Then, on Lily's birthday, Shannon and I pulled an all-nighter decorating 13 stuffed monkeys with Lily's favorite stuff, and then we strung them up in her yard at 5:00 in the morning. That was all fun and everything, but the part that I always leave out is the fact that the night before Lily's birthday, I broke my toe. On a chair. I was feeling really spazy since I had been up all night and I guess I was acting recklessly. I was, like, rushing to the cabinets to get the scissors, and WHAM I stubbed my toe in the worst way possible. The problem was, this was at about 4:00 in the morning, so there was nothing I could really do about it except put ice on it. When my mom woke up in the morning, I told her I broke my toe and she was like "okay, well its 5:00, I'm not taking you to the hospital now!" Sorry Mom, but that didn't help much. I could not walk up the stairs. It hurt for like four or five months after that.

I was reminded of this story today because about 5 minutes ago, I broke my toe. On a chair. Again. The worst thing about a broken toe is that it hurts a lot, but not enough to, like, do anything serious about. It doesn't hurt enough to have to talk to a doctor about, but it hurts enough that I can't do anything fun that involves running. Or walking. Or standing. Gaahghag this is soo annoying! I'll forget about it and then step on something and hurt it all over again! If you've ever had a broken toe or broken bone or overall horrible injury experience, tell about it in the comments!

Some of you may not know, but last week I missed a bunch of days because I was sick. I missed Monday, then I went Tuesday but I didn't feel good Tuesday night. I went Wednesday but I didn't feel good Wednesday night either. I missed Thursday, and on Thursday night I went to the doctor. They did a strep test and said I didn't have strep, so I went to school on Friday. A little way through social studies, the phone rang, and - SURPRISE!! - it turns out the overnight strep test turned out positive. Yippy. I went home, and then since I'm a big girl and don't get the liquid medicine anymore, we picked up a bottle of pills. Alright, I thought, I've taken pills before. In my opinion, pills are better than the kiddy chewables or liquid, because pills don't have a taste. However, when we got home and I opened the bottle, and the pills were huge. It took me seriously 7 tries to swallow the first dose. I've gotten better at it from practice, but it turns out i'm not a fan of hard encased objects going down my throat. I have to take two pills every day, one in the morning and one at night. I felt the need to rant about this because there's nothing else I can do about it

I guess I never really appreciated this, being the procrastinator that I am, but one of the most fun ways to spend my nights is just sitting in my pjs, all my homework done, and watching tv. This is a pleasure I did not get to enjoy tonight... No, tonight I am in my bed typing this on my iPod (feeling fancy; I've never used it to blog before) while I just really want to be sleeping. However, I did get to enjoy my tv over the long weekend. I didn't go anywhere, just stayed up late (watching tv in my pjs) and slept in, and ate a lot of bagels. Yes, that's another thing my long weekend helped me appreciate; BAGELS!!! I'm going to go on a completely random side note here but I just need to say that I LOVE BAGELS, and call me weird but I get a plain bagel with regular cream cheese, none of that weird strawberry spread or poppyseeds or whatever. I guess my point is, the long weekend really spoiled me, and Monday on a Tuesday can be even worse than Monday on a Monday. I couldn't sleep in, stay up late the night before, or even eat a bagel. AHH and I just remembered: I won a free bagel at lunch! Yay! But anyways, another thing I learned to appreciate over the long weekend was sleep, so I'm going to go get some now! Good night everyone (that's probably going to sound weird when I re-proofread this in the middle of the day but oh well...)

I know this blog is way overdue, but I just didn't know what to say about the play Les Miserables. I saw it at the Cadillac Theater in Chicago, the week after Thanksgiving break. This blog has been sitting empty in my drafts box since then, because I just couldn't sum it up in words. It was seriously that good. The original idea was to just summarize the play-seeing experience, but now that I've seen the movie too, I'll be doing some comparisons.So, the morning that we were going to see the play, I was pretty excited because I'd seen the anniversary thing that was on TV (they just had all the songs and stuff on the TV one). I knew the songs were good, but I was excited to see it live. I also didn't know the whole story. Meaning I wasn't prepared to spend the rest of the day on-and-off crying and feeling terrible for poor Jean ValJean, then poor Fantine, then poor Cosette, then poor Eponine, the list goes on and on. So I was picked up from school right before lunch, and then we were off. One el trip and a walk through the cold later, we were in the crowded theater entrance. I had never been in the Cadillac theater before, and, well lets just say it was very... ornate. It was pretty cool to look around, though. Here is a picture of what the place looked like, not the actual theater that we sat down and watched it in, but the sort of hallway/lobby area:

We looked around there for a little while, and I got a shirt on the floor below (these were taken from a balcony). The floor the pictures are taken from (the second floor with the railing all around it) is where the theater entrance was, it's on the left side of the pictures but you can't see it. This is how it looked from our seats (which were, by the way, awesome for short people: no heads to look over!):

The next paragraph has spoilers in in, fyi

The first one is a panorama of the inside of the theater from my seats (the blue part is on the stage, in case you couldn't see; it was sort of dark in there). The second one is from the same place, just straight across to the other side of the theater. Our seats were really good, though, because I was sitting right next to the railing, so there was nothing blocking my view of the stage. Then all the lights darkened, and the blue screen lifted, and the first song started. It didn't take long for me to get wrapped into the story, and in order for you to understand what I'm going to tell you, you have to know that I NEVER CRY. Like, EVER. Not for movies, books, fleshwounds, I just don't cry. As I was sitting there watching Fantine die (this was like towards the beginning) I realized my face was wet. I didn't even realize I was crying, but I sure was. Things were looking up when (seriously) Eponine was shot. And died a long drawn-out death in Marius's arms (oh yes, she was singing to the very last breath). Whew, glad that scenes over-WOW they just HAD to put a little boy getting shot in there too, didn't they!?!?!? Oh look, all those guys are lying there DEAD! All Marius's friends! This continued throughout the whole play, each tragedy evenly spaced out so that you are crying the entire time. It was an excellent story, with excellent music, but the music was just about the saddest music I've ever heard: "Empty chairs and empty tables, where my friends will meet no more", "If I die, let me die, let him live, bring him home", not to mention the song Eponine and Marius sing when Eponine is dying, or, well, when anyone's dying... There were lots of deaths in there that were sadder than I expected, even Jovert, who is pretty much the antagonist of the story. It was super good, and I still sometimes get the songs stuck in my head, but it was super sad.

Then, over Christmas break, I saw the movie. As music goes, it was a completely different story. My friends didn't notice it as much as I did, but the music was pretty bad. I think I noticed it more, because the singing didn't even approach the singing at the play. The acting was good, though. I think I was really not impressed by the movie because I had already seen the play, and the play was just so much better. So, there's my long overdue Les Miz blog, hope you enjoyed it

I am a firm believer in Christmas magic. Even though Santa no longer visits the Lally house (I'm in 8th grade (obviously) and have no cute younger siblings to set up Santa's gifts for), when my mom asked me if I wanted to open my presents on Christmas eve, I refused. Same last year, and the year before that, and so on. I still want that fluttery tummy feeling on Christmas morning. I still make my mom wait until I'm asleep on Christmas eve to put all the presents out. I still make her hide them in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and I never go searching for them. And on Christmas morning when I walk out of my bedroom, past my brother's room, past my mom's room, down the hall, and past the kitchen, I still pause when I get to the living room entrance. I let the anticipation build up until I'm ready to explode. Then I burst somewhat groggily into the living room and see all the gifts under the tree, and I know that Santa has visited, even if Santa is my mom. I'm about to get sappy, just fair warning. Maybe it's just me, but there is something magical about Christmas morning. When I walk out, before I even look at the presents, I take a deep breath and take in the beautiful Christmas tree, the crib set with little baby Jesus in his manger, the stockings hanging from the decorated mantle, and how this beautiful day only comes around once a year. Right there I decide that this Christmas will be a good one, and I go over and see what my awesome mom got me. I take a second to appreciate how well my mom really knows me, and my grandparents too. My grandparents spend Christmas with us, and after my brother and I have looked at all of our presents, emptied our stockings, and taken a billion pictures of Dusty, we go and enjoy French Toast breakfast. My point is, Christmas is magical, even without Santa, reindeer, and elves.

I was going to put this in a comment, but decided it called for a blog post. Being a short person, I made my own list of pros and cons (I'm shorter than you, Nick!!! And Ned you are forbidden from commenting) so here it is:

pros :)

1. fit in awesome small places 2. able to get my dog out of weird small places she hides in3. don't bang my head on open cabinets4. super easy to run away from people through crowds, able to fit easily between people (this also works in crowded hallways if you're late to class)5. can pass as younger to get awesome discounts on entrance fees to places6. fit into smaller clothes and shoes that are less expensive than the normal people versions7. i added this one because lists should have at least 7 items (a rule i just made up)

cons :(

1. people think you're younger2. when I'm out with my friends people ask me if I'm their younger sister...3. neck hurts from looking up at people4. when walking in the hallway if you got elbowed, the person's elbow would hit your elbow, whereas it would hit my face 5. can't find people in crowds6. can't see over/out of stuff7. can't reach stuff on high shelves (this is canceled out by the ability to climb onto countertops, but I put it on here because all lists should have at least 7 items...)

So there's my list! Feel free to add to it in the comments (except Ned)

This trimester, I am taking the class WWW.LA (or as I call it, LA.com). It's been pretty easy so far. The point of the class is to write a research paper, about 5 pages long. All we've done so far is research our topic, which although it isn't hard has proven to be very interesting. My topic is dreams and sleep. Something just occurred to me, and here it is: I don't know if anyone else has had this happen to them, but sometimes I'll be having a dream, and I'll be holding something, let's say, I don't know, a glass of water, and then I wake up and I'm in my bed but I still feel the glass of water in my hand. I was awake, but I still felt like I was holding the thing from my dream until I moved my hand. This has happened to me more than once. I wonder why this is. You know how people say "pinch me so I know I'm not dreaming"? If you pinch yourself while you're dreaming, will you wake up? I wonder where the physical boundaries are drawn between dreaming and waking up. When you're sleeping, your nerves supposedly don't report things to your brain, but if that's true, why did I feel like I was holding a glass of water from my dream when I was awake? This is something I'll have to do more research on and I'll tell you if I find out, and comment if you know/had that happen to you too!

Welcome to Maura's Blog!

MAURA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi, it's Maura! I have a dog, I run cross country, and you no longer have to read this blog because that pretty much sums up everything on here.

My Books

Check out my front page to see the books I want to read, if you want too, I can't force you to but you can if you want, well I don't know now I confused myself now so never mind.

Picture Editor

As you can see, Dusty helps with the pictures. :D Thanks for being so cute, Dusty! Also, don't get confused. Dusty had darker fur when she was little, but she was tan underneath! Nope, I don't have two dogs.

Page Picture

The pictures on the top of this page and on my homepage are pictures I took at the Botanic Gardens, and I thought they went well with this theme, so.... yep!